Kelly Slater Designs’ The Banana

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Kelly Slater The Banana

Kelly Slater Designs Surfboards : Banana

In the previous post we discussed the Kelly Slater Designs Sci-Fi model; let’s look into the Banana now (the one that Kelly surfed at his famous pool wave session!

None of these boards feature a conventional stringer, rather, they all have a strip of a 0.75” (18 mm) wide aerospace composite that runs down the centreline of the board. Like several other FireWire surfboards, they have used the Linear Flex Technology (LFT) and it’s pretty awesome (boards hardly break anymore at Kalon). And as Stabmag notes, another big part of the construction is the combo of EPS blanks and entropy bio-resins, which makes the boards certified “Ecoboards” by SustainableSurf.org.

Kelly Slater Designs coming to Kalon Surf in May, we will be among the first in the world (but definitely in Costa Rica) to have our guests test them out.

The Banana:

Kelly Slater Designs’ take on the Banana: “Inspired by the extreme rocker boards that Greg Webber and Shane Herring developed in the early 90’s. the BANANA is a far more us­er-friendly version that Kelly and Greg devel­oped for intermediate to advanced surfers. And meant to be ridden in better than average condi­tions. The BANANA has a smooth outline curve from nose to tail. a slight bump wing in front of the fins. as well as a generous single to double concave bottom contour. The end redult is an ex­tremely high performance surfboard that can be pushed hard through turns. while holding it’s own in deep barrels. In other words. the carving rail turns and extreme tube riding that Kelly was doing at Pipe on the smaller days during the 2015 Masters. “

The guys of Stabmag noted that “This is the board that Slater rode at the Pipe Masters and was everyone’s first look at Slater Designs. The champ rides it at 5’10”x 18 3/8”x 2 1/4” with 25.8L of volume and it’s his pick for good, hollow conditions. With a very pulled in tail and heaps of rocker, you better be tube hunting if you’re riding the Banana. Somewhat inspired by the work that Webber and Shane Herring did together back in the ‘90s, this is what Kelly’s riding at Pipe and Cloudbreak.”

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